[Resolved] emailing a php file

jenni

Is it possible to include a php file as the content of an html email? I have a file that outputs the results of a form in an html table. It also pulls info from a database, includes other info, etc. Can I somehow make the output of this file the message of an email?

please say yes...

onion2k


$strOutputOfPHPinHTMLFormat = "blah blah blah";

mail($to,$subject,$strOutputOfPHPinHTMLFormat);

Surely? Or am I oversimplifying?

I realise thats technically not an HTML email, but theres eleventyhundred classes for doing that kicking about the place.

jenni

I wish it was that easy. Basically, I need to be able to have a php file generate the html that is going to be sent in an email rather than making a REALLY long variable with all of the " commented out.

I tried implode(file(myfile.php))...etc. It allowed me to use a file instead of the contents of a variable as the email message. But, it did not process the php queries included in myfile.php.

Sorry if I am not explaining myself clearly...it has been a really long 24 hours.

drew010

ok. so basically you want the email to contain what a person would see if they called the php file from the browser right?

if so, try this:

if your site is http://www.yoursite.com and the php page you want output in the email is /output.php, try this:

$contents = file_get_contents("http://www.yoursite.com/output.php");
mail("whoever", "subject", stripslashes($contents));

be sure to add Content-Type: text/html among the other headers in the mail call. basically that code above just calls that file as it if were a browser, the script executes and the contents are stored in $contents.

hope that works for you.

sethadam1

This will work. I use it all the time.

     $to = "you@yoursite.com"; 
	/* To send HTML mail, you can set the Content-type header. */
	$headers  = "MIME-Version: 1.0\r\n";
	$headers .= "Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1\r\n";
	/* additional headers */
	$headers .= $to."\r\n";
	$headers .= "From: Monkey Pants <monkey@whatever.net>\r\n";

/* message */
$message = '<html><head><title>This is an HTML message!</title></head><body style="text-align:center;">';
 /* images work too */ 
$message .= '<p><img src="http://tubecode.org/images/tubecode-red.png" border="0"></p>';
$message .= '</body></html>';

mail($to,"subject line",$message,$headers);

jenni

For some reason, I couldn't get it to work...but I haven't given up. Thanks so much for your response!

maqmus

I use this method to send my news and it works Ok. The problem is what kind of data variables are you generating trough PHP, because you wont be abble to set HTTP_REFERER (for example), but a date is possible.

Another thing, you need to use URL with file_get_contents(). This is the only way to handle your php page as html. If you use a path you'll get the codes.

dotty

To Drew010 -

Thank you - you've solved my problem!!

I've used your code

$contents = file_get_contents("http://www.yoursite.com/output.php");

to retrieve variable content and send it in an email.

The forum is great!

jenni

I know it has been awhile, but I finally decided to sit down and figure this thing out. I looked in the manual, but couldn't find the answers to a couple of questions about file_get_contents().

Is it a standard function?
I don't know if my server doesn't have it enabled or if I am just not using it correctly...

Do variables in the URL work?
file_get_contents("http://whatever.com/mypage.php?foo=bar");

Is it possible to use the function with files that are located outside the www folder?
(That is where most of the files that I use frequently are stored and then I just include them in a doc.)

I have tried it with a simple file, located in my web directory, with no variables in the URL and I could not get it to work. That's why I'm wondering if there is a way to find out if it is enabled on my server or not...

As always, any help is appreciated.

stevesweetland

set your body tag, and join(url to the php file).

i always use join, it works just like a browser, with variables and everyfink

jenni

Thanks for your response...I just figured out my problem though...I am running PHP Version 4.2.3 but file_get_contents needs PHP 4 >= 4.3.0, PHP 5 in order to work. I should have checked that first. Doh! I didn't see a similar function for an earlier version of PHP. Looks like I'm back to doing it the old way.

stevesweetland

never realised join was an alias of implode..... hmm anyway, it works in php3... i do this

join('',file("http://www.foo.com/bar.php"));

you must include [url]http://,[/url] or itll just include the php file, and not actually read it through apache (liek you want to)

jenni

To be honest, when you first posted I looked up join() in the manual and wasn't sure what that had to do with my issue. This morning, I decided to give it a try just for the heck of it and Wahoo! It worked!

Thank you so much for your post! It really made my life A LOT easier. You rock!